


Baby, it's cold outside

by knightofscarlettstars



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Affection, Anxiety, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Insomnia, Kissing, Late at Night, Sleepy Cuddles, late night visits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28208322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightofscarlettstars/pseuds/knightofscarlettstars
Summary: Esther has trouble sleeping a lot and when she does, it's hard to keep herself away from the only thing that helps.Inspired by this exchange during TUC, Ep 17Brennan:Esther’s now got a key to Gramercy Park, which is pretty wild.Emily:Oh, I thought you were going to say to Ricky’s apartment. Oh my God.Siobhan:She definitely has, I feel like Ricky immediately gives her a key. He already had one made.Zac:Just for, you know, just to keep. Just to have.Ally:Just to use to come in and out.
Relationships: Ricky Matsui/Esther Sinclair
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	Baby, it's cold outside

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse the title, it's almost Christmas when I'm posting this
> 
> God, I have so many feelings about these two ;-; I'll probably be posting many more fics

It was late. Far too late, and she knew it. Probably close to one or two in the morning.

She stared into the darkness, taking deep, deliberate breaths and fighting desperately to keep her heartbeat slow. She was just so terribly alone, so isolated. She knew she wasn’t, not really. She had a boyfriend who loved her, best friends in Sofia and Em, and a whole society full of people who cherished and respected her, and thought she was doing great work.

She wasn’t alone.

But to hell if she didn’t feel like it.

She rolled onto her side with a frustrated sigh, part of the pillow pushed up to obscure her vision. She tried to summon up the feeling of Ricky’s chest pressed against her back, his nose resting in the crook of her neck, his muscular arm thrown over her side, his legs tangled with hers. Every time she saw him, she tried to burn that feeling into her mind so she could remember it in times like these.

But the cold emptiness of the bed surrounded her, the darkness seeming to press in from all sides. Not in a comforting way like a hug, but in a suffocating way. No matter how she tried to fight it, her mind strayed, like it did every night, to her lifeline.

It was there. Hanging on the key hooks with the other keys beside the door. She knew it was there, even though it was across the apartment from her bedroom. It was there, tempting her. Ricky had given it to her barely a month after they’d started dating. He’d said there was no one he’d trust more with it and it had brought her to the verge of tears.

But she’d been loath to use it. It was a privilege, she knew, one she shouldn’t take advantage of. Especially not at two in the morning on a Thursday.

And yet the darkness still pressed in.

She turned her head and smushed her face into the pillow, the thick fabric and down muffling her angry moan. Her own hand ghosted down her side and across the inside of her thigh, but there was nothing to it. Nothing but desperation and loneliness that she knew it would only feed.

She tucked her knees up to her chest and swallowed hard. Letting out a long, shaky sigh, she rolled over and dared to look at the time on her phone. Despite all logic in her mind, her heart sank at the sight of her lock screen, a picture of Ricky and Ox, uncluttered by messages. It took her a few seconds to tear her eyes from them and look at the time.

2:47 am.

She dropped the phone unceremoniously back onto her bedside table and rolled over with another angry moan. It was already so late, she was going to be exhausted when she got to the Society in the morning. There was no way she would fall asleep in this state, so she rolled out of bed, grabbing her phone for no particular reason, and headed to the kitchen for melatonin.

Goosebumps erupted across her skin as she walked down the cold hallway past the bathroom and got to the main area. She dropped her phone on the island and opened the cupboard where she kept all her medications.

She could feel it behind her. Pulsing, almost. Tempting her. She dared not turn to look at the door, so she balanced the container on the dark, unlit stove and pulled out the melatonin bottle. There was a sinking feeling in her chest as she felt how light it was, and her heart dropped into her stomach when she opened it and found it empty.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

She tossed the bottle towards the recycling, missed, and it clattered to the floor.

“Fuck,” she repeated.

She replaced the container in the cupboard and went to pick up the bottle. It had rolled all the way to the umbrella basket near the door. She bent to pick it up and when she straightened out, found herself face to face with it.

The key. The key that led to her salvation.

Her heart pounded and she didn’t take her eyes off it, dropping the empty bottle in the recycling without looking. She stood there for almost two minutes, dressed in nothing but a sleep bra and lacy shorts, her whole body covered in goosebumps and shivering.

“Fuck it. Maybe I’ll go for a walk. Maybe go stay in a hotel room or something. I’ll sleep better if I’m not here.”

She tried not to think about how crazy she sounded, talking to herself in the middle of her dark, empty apartment.

She backed slowly away from the key, as if it would bite her, and headed back to her room. She couldn’t find it in her to fully change, because that felt too much like starting a new day, so she pulled on her loose white pants over her shorts and tugged on a long-sleeved shirt and a jacket. She grabbed her phone off the island as she headed back towards the door and tugged on her favourite boots, of course.

There it was again. Staring her down from it’s key hook, among the other keys. Most people wouldn’t think anything special of it, but she would trade all the other keys on the hooks to be able to use that one. Almost unconsciously, she reached out and grabbed it, stuffing it in her pocket before slipping out and locking the door behind her before she could talk herself out of it.

She stepped out onto the street, breathing in the freezing night air. Despite her jacket, she was only wearing a thin shirt beneath it and loose, flowy pants, and was therefore shivering violently. She set off, unsure of where her feet were taking her, knowing only that she had to keep moving for fear of freezing solid. Her hands were stuffed in her pockets to keep them warmer and she tried to ignore the feeling of her skin brushing against cold metal.

Before she knew it, she was standing at a bus stop as a bus rolled up. She hadn’t checked where it was going, but at least it would be warm inside. She paid her fare, gave the tired looking driver a grateful smile for working this early in the morning, and sat down in a seat in the mostly empty bus. A few people gave her odd looks, but she gave them odd looks right back. They all had reasons for being awake at this time and she was willing to bet none of them were really good ones. She pulled out her phone to check where the bus was headed and her stomach filled with butterflies.

The bus route went right past Ricky’s apartment.

The key in her pocket seemed to triple in weight as she stared at the route. She cursed violently in her head and then shook it. She had six stops until the one by Ricky’s place. It was warm in the bus, she didn’t have to get off. She could just keep riding it until the route was over, she had no idea where she’d end up.

For some wild, inconceivable reason, being lost in New York at 3am seemed more inviting to her than her cold, dark apartment and her cold, lonely bed.

_Or I could just go check on him._

She grit her teeth against the thought, but the key in her pocket seemed to weigh a million pounds and it wormed its way into her mind.

_I could just go see if he’s okay. Just check on him. I’m sure I’d sleep better if I did._

“Next stop: Warren street.”

Acting on pure impulse, her hand closed around the key in her pocket and she abruptly stood up and walked off the bus. A burst of freezing night air hit her face as she stepped out onto the sidewalk and she was almost immediately shivering again. She thought of sitting by the fire with her mom and grandma, of hot cups of coffee shared with Sofia and Em, of Ricky’s tight, warm embrace, and she swallowed down tears as the cold chilled her to her core.

She headed up the street at a brisk walk, trying to chase the deep cold away with motion. As she walked, she once again took a second to marvel at nocturnal animals who spent most of their lives awake and outside at this time in this freezing cold that seemed mostly unsurvivable to humans. Taking a sharp left, she headed up onto the side street where she knew Ricky’s apartment building was. She ducked into the alcove, unlocking the main door and slipping inside.

It wasn’t _warm_ inside the building, but it certainly lacked the biting cold wind of being outside on the streets, so it was already better. She took a few shuddering breaths of air that didn’t stab at her lungs before continuing her brisk walk towards the elevator.

It was too late to go back now, so she knew she should just get it over with as quickly as possible and head back home. She tried not to dwell too much about the prospect of having to go back out in the cold to get out of here. The elevator let her out on the sixth floor and she walked down the nice, blue-carpeted hall, making no noise as she moved toward 607. Pulling the key out of her pocket, half expecting it to burn her as she did so, she slid it into the lock and paused for a fraction of a second to consider the impact this might have on their relationship.

But, after all, it was much too late to go back now. It would simply be silly to go all the way back home without seeing this through, and she was too smart not to know that. And he was asleep anyway. Obviously she would tell him tomorrow, but he didn’t have to know now. She turned the key in the lock, as slowly and quietly as she could, and pushed the door open.

It didn’t creak, of course Ricky would have perfect maintenance on his apartment. She closed it behind her, locked it, and pocketed the key once more. Moving quickly through the main area to where she knew his bedroom was, she hovered by the slightly ajar door, momentarily regretting all the decisions she had made tonight.

She could hear him breathing and, when she would look back on this in the morning, that was the tipping point for her. His breathing was so steady and slow, it had calmed her from many a panic and it made her think of nothing but happiness and peace. She almost doubled over from the force of her sudden, overwhelming desire to be curled up against his chest. She pushed the door open, no creak on this one either, thankfully.

And there he was. Shirtless, of course, which did nothing to help her situation, sprawled out under the thick white comforter, which she knew from experience to be very warm, his chest rising and falling with his breathing.

It wasn’t much warmer in here than it had been in the lobby, he clearly turned the heat off when he went to bed, but it was still better than outside. Through his bedroom windows she could see the cold wind whipping up Warren street, carrying a few stray snowflakes on it.

She didn’t want to go home. She was suddenly hit with the overwhelming truth of it, that she was lonely and it was freezing and she didn’t want to walk in the cold and go all the way home just to lay in the dark until morning. Fully discarding the part of her mind that was rational and made good decisions, she slipped her feet out of her boots and shrugged off her jacket, laying it atop them on the ground.

Dressed in her thin, black long-sleeve and the loose white pants that provided no warmth whatsoever, she crawled onto Ricky’s bed, trying to ignore the guilt and shame that pressed in from all sides, and curled up at the foot of it, wrapping herself carefully around so as to avoid touching him at all and disturbing his sleep. After a few moments of consideration, she grabbed her jacket off the ground and pulled it over herself like a makeshift blanket.

She was still cold, but thanks to the small amount of clothing and the jacket-blanket, she was no longer shivering. Ricky’s breathing was so close and she felt herself drifting with it. Not towards sleep, she was still very much awake, but it brought a sense of stillness and peace to her. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing to match his, feeling the energy push and pull, and the darkness stopped pressing in.

She didn’t know how long it had been, how long spent just breathing, before Ricky started to stir. Her whole body tensed with fear, but she knew there was nothing she could do now, so all she could think to do was lie as still as she could and face the consequences of her choices.

She felt the blankets shift as he sat up and heard his small, confused noise.

“Esther?”

She sighed and pushed herself up into a sitting position. Ricky squinted at her and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked, blearily.

“No, you’re… you’re awake,” she told him. “You... gave me a key, remember?”

He blinked a few times, but seemed to register that.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

Her heart seized up in her throat and she tried to hide her clenching fists as her whole body tensed up. But Ricky had always been perceptive and his eyes narrowed with concern.

“I… I… I couldn’t… sleep,” she whispered.

It was like all the reality of what she had done was coming crashing down on her and she realized she was curled up, freezing cold on Ricky’s bed at nearly 4 in the morning.

She scrambled to get her feet under her and made to get up.

“I’m sorry, I should g-”

Ricky cut her off by gently grabbing her wrist and tugging her up beside him. He dragged the covers down with his other hand and pulled her under them with him. He moved both hands to her back and gently tugged off her shirt before drawing her close to his chest.

“You’re so cold,” he murmured.

Esther’s breathing was ragged as he rubbed circles into her back with his hand. It was just so warm, so incredibly warm. The whole bed already heated from him sleeping in it, the weight of the comforter heavy and reassuring, her face and chest pressed against the hot skin of Ricky’s chest. She screwed her eyes shut and swallowed back tears, pressing her face into the crook of his neck.

Ricky hummed softly and started laying featherlight kisses across her skin, trailing from her cheeks, down her neck and across her shoulders and collarbone, and then back up. Esther exhaled a long, shaky breath and felt her core body temperature start to rise again. His lips were hot against her skin, like she’d been burned, but it didn’t hurt at all. In fact, it felt better than anything her brain could have conjured. Ricky brought his mouth to her ear and gave it a gentle nibble. She let out a squeak and he gave a huff of laughter.

“We’ll talk tomorrow, okay? For now, stay,” he whispered.

She choked back a sob and instead nodded, burying her hand in his hair and tugging him in for a kiss. It was hot and passionate and deep, and also tender and sweet and everything she needed. It was followed by several smaller kisses, neither of them really willing to stop. Eventually, Esther buried her face in Ricky’s neck and he tugged her even closer so they were pressed flush together, before tipping sideways and half-rolling so that she was laying on his chest. Esther laid her cheek against his hot skin and let out a long sigh, her breathing finally steadying.

“I love you,” she murmured, pressing a few gentle kisses to his shoulders.

He hummed happily at the touch and pressed a kiss into her hair.

“I love you too. You can use that key whenever you want to.”

She smiled and nestled her head against him, surrounded by warmth and happiness and the feeling of not being alone.

The cold wind whipped outside, carrying flurries of snowflakes down from the sky, and Esther thought nothing of it.

She was sleeping, peacefully.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! This is my first time posting a fic I've written, so have mercy ^^'
> 
> I may write a part two, but so far I'm sticking with this. Let me know if you'd like to see another chapter!


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